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Rep. David Wu (D-Ore.) announced Tuesday he will resign from Congress following accusations he had unwanted sexual contact with a teenage girl.

“I cannot care for my family the way I wish while serving in Congress and fighting these very serious allegations,” Wu said in a statement.

Wu claims the incident with the daughter of a longtime friend and donor–who is now 18 years old–was consensual, and said he will continue to serve until the resolution of the debt ceiling battle.

Wu for months faced intense pressure back home to resign following reports of his erratic behavior. Prior to today’s announcement, he tried to deflect such pressure by stressing that he was undergoing mental health treatment. On Friday, Wu’s problems deepened when The Oregonian reported on the allegations over the unwanted sexual encounter.

House Democrats on Sunday called for an ethics investigation into the incident, increasing the public pressure on the seven term congressman to leave office. Wu at first indicated he would simply retire in 2012, and would not resign.

Wu disclosed in July 2010 that he had stopped drinking. He was legally separated from his wife the following month. This past February, the congressman admitted to receiving mental health treatment following reports of his bizarre behavior.

Due to Wu’s perceived vulnerability, a competitive 2012 race had already been taking shape in his 1st District. State labor commissioner Brad Avakian began campaigning for the seat in April and has been joined by state Rep. Brad Witt for the Democratic nomination. The seat overall leans Democratic.

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WASHINGTON (AP) — The White House threatened on Tuesday to veto emergency House legislation that aims to avert a threatened national default, a pre-emptive strike issued as Republican Speaker John Boehner labored to line up enough votes in his own party to pass the measure.

Boehner faced criticism from some conservatives in advance of an expected vote on Wednesday.

The bill would raise the debt limit by $1 trillion while making cuts to federal spending of $1.2 trillion — reductions that conservatives say aren’t enough.

The measure also would establish a committee of lawmakers to recommend additional budget savings of $1.8 trillion, which would trigger an additional $1.6 trillion increase in the debt limit.

The White House objects to the requirement for a second vote before the 2012 elections.

Majority Leader Harry Reid said the measure stood no chance of passing the Senate even if it cleared the House. He pronounced it “dead on arrival.”

Washington and the nation are staring down an Aug. 2 deadline to raise the debt limit or face national default.

Flanked by conservative colleagues, Rep. Jim Jordan, R-Ohio, told reporters he could not back the Boehner proposal and said it doesn’t have the votes to pass in the Republican-controlled House. In a two-step plan, Boehner is pressing for a vote on Wednesday and a second vote Thursday on a balanced-budget amendment to the Constitution.

“We think there are real problems with this plan,” said Jordan, who heads the Republican Study Group. He argued that the spending cuts are insufficient and expressed opposition to likely tax increases.

Added Rep. Steve Southerland, R-Fla.: “If I had to vote right now, my vote would be no.”

And Rep. Michele Bachmann of Minnesota, campaigning for the Republican presidential nomination in Iowa, said she would vote against any bill in Congress to raise the debt ceiling. She said that included Boehner’s plan.

. The conservative challenge came just hours after House Majority Leader Eric Cantor told the Republican rank and file to stop grumbling as he sought to rally lawmakers for the Boehner plan. In a closed-door session, the Virginia Republican acknowledged the resistance to increasing the nation’s borrowing authority. “The debt limit vote sucks,” he told his caucus. But Cantor insisted that it must be done.

Cantor spelled out the options for the GOP — allowing default and stepping into an economic abyss, backing the Senate Democratic plan or calling President Barack Obama’s bluff by backing the GOP’s own proposal.

Neither of the rival plans offered by Boehner in the House and Reid in the Senate seemed to have the necessary votes in Congress amid a bitter stalemate that could have far-reaching repercussions for the fragile U.S. economy as well as global markets. Stocks declined Tuesday as U.S. markets registered their nervousness over the Washington gridlock between Obama and Republicans.

At the White House, spokesman Jay Carney said the administration remains in contact with congressional leaders despite the collapse of talks last Friday and inconclusive discussions this past weekend.

“We’re working on Plan B. … There has to be a product that can pass the House and the Senate and be signed into law,” said Carney, who argued that the Boehner plan had no chance of passing in the Senate.

Carney insisted that Aug. 2 is the drop-dead date for the Treasury’s cash flow — “beyond that date we lose our capacity to borrow” — and expressed confidence that the debt ceiling would be raised by the deadline.

The continued bickering on Capitol Hill overshadowed any signs of emerging common ground.

Two major groups who carry some sway with conservative lawmakers — the Club for Growth and Heritage Action for America — said the Boehner plan failed to address the fiscal mess and they urged members to contact lawmakers and express their opposition.

Countering the criticism, the U.S. Chamber of Commerce backed the legislation.

“We are going to have some work to do to get it passed, but I think we can do it,” Boehner told reporters.

In an address Monday night, Obama pleaded for compromise and urged Americans to contact their lawmakers.

“We can’t allow the American people to become collateral damage to Washington’s political warfare,” Obama told the nation.

Boehner, in a rebuttal, said he had given “my all” to work out a deal with Obama.

“The president would not take yes for an answer,” he said.

House offices experienced a spike in telephone calls, receiving 35,000 per hour, said Salley Wood, communications director for the House Administration Committee. On an average day, the House gets about 20,000 calls per hour. During the rancorous health care debate, House offices received about 50,000 plus calls per hour.

Wood also said some congressional websites experienced problems dealing with the high volume of traffic, especially those operated by outside vendors.

Unclear was whether the callers echoed Obama’s argument or backed Boehner’s call for his approach.

In the Senate, Reid challenged Republicans to back his competing legislation, arguing that the no-taxes, government-cuts proposal was just what they wanted.

“In short, it’s everything the Republicans have demanded wrapped up in a bow and delivered to their door,” Reid said at the start of the Senate session.

In afternoon trading on Wall Street, stocks were mixed as the financial markets warily watched the standoff.

The extraordinary back-to-back appeals by Obama and Boehner gave no indication that weeks of brinkmanship and sputtering talks over long-term deficit reductions were on the verge of ending. With the deadline rapidly closing, Congress and the White House had limited options to avoid a potential government default that could send the already weak economy into a damaging swoon.

Obama reiterated his call for achieving lower deficits though spending cuts and new tax revenues. But in a notable retreat, he voiced support for a Senate Democratic plan that would reduce deficits by about $2.7 trillion over 10 years only with spending cuts, not with additional revenue.

The Senate plan, unveiled by Reid, and the proposal announced the same day by Boehner overlap in significant ways. Both identify about $1.2 trillion in spending cuts to the day-to-day operating budgets of government agencies, though Reid’s proposal also counts an extra $1 trillion in savings from winding down wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. Both proposals would create a bipartisan congressional commission to identify further deficit reductions, especially in major health care programs such as Medicare and Medicaid.

The primary difference between the two is timing. Reid’s proposal would raise the debt ceiling enough so that it wouldn’t have to be reconsidered until 2013, beyond the 2012 elections, as demanded by Obama. The GOP plan would only extend the debt ceiling for about six months.

For Republicans, the timing provides crucial leverage to force Democrats and the president to cut spending in Medicare, Medicaid and Social Security, expensive benefit programs that Democrats have long protected, despite escalating costs.

Credit rating agencies such as Moody’s and Standard & Poor’s have threatened to downgrade the United States’ gold-plated AAA rating if Congress and the White House don’t extend the debt ceiling and take steps to bring long-term deficits under control.

While both plans would increase the debt ceiling, ratings agencies have said a short-term increase such as the one proposed by House Republicans may not be enough to protect the U.S. from a ratings downgrade. What’s more, neither plan offers the larger deficit-reducing assurances that credit ratings have said they need for the U.S. to retain its place as one of the most secure investments in the world.

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Solyndra Not Sole Firm to Hit Rock Bottom Despite Stimulus Funding

Published September 15, 2011

Solyndra, the solar panel company whose highly publicized failure and consequent investigation by federal authorities has flashed across headlines recently, isn’t the only business to go belly up after benefiting from a piece of the $800 billion economic stimulus package passed in 2009.

At least four other companies have received stimulus funding only to later file for bankruptcy, and two of those were working on alternative energy.

Evergreen Solar Inc., indirectly received $5.3 million through a state grant to open a $450 million facility in 2007 that employed roughly 800 people. The company, once a rock star in the solar industry, filed for bankruptcy protection last month, saying it couldn’t compete with Chinese rivals without reorganizing. The company intends to focus on building up its manufacturing facility in China.

SpectraWatt, based in Hopewell Junction, N.Y., is also a solar cell company that was spun out of Intel in 2008. In June 2009, SpectraWatt received a $500,000 grant from the National Renewable Energy Laboratory as part of the stimulus package. SpectraWatt was one of 13 companies to receive the money to help develop ways to improve solar cells without changing current manufacturing processes.

The company filed for bankruptcy last month, saying it could not compete with its Chinese competitors, which receive “considerable government and financial support.”

On Tuesday, Deputy Secretary of Energy Daniel Poneman wrote an editorial for “USA Today” in which he blamed China in part for the failure of U.S. solar energy manufacturers to compete.

“Winning will require substantial investments. Last year, for example, the China Development Bank offered more than $30 billion in financing to Chinese solar manufacturers, about 20 times more than U.S.-backed loans to solar manufacturers,” Poneman wrote.

“Unfortunately, expanding production has coincided with short-term softening demand, a product of the banking crisis in Europe and its wider economic effects. The combination has had a dramatic effect on the price of solar cells, which has plummeted 42 percent in the past nine months. This has taken a serious toll on solar manufacturers everywhere, including the U.S,” he continued.

On Thursday, White House spokesman Jay Carney noted that the U.S. is on track to double its renewable energy power in 2012, but it will require commitment in the U.S. to grow.

“We have a choice to make as a nation because we will be buying renewable energy projects (in the future) …do we want to buy it with a stamp on it that says ‘made in America’ or do we want to buy it from the Chinese or other countries?” Carney asked. “High-tech clean energy industries are going to be key to (economic prosperity) in this century.”

But Republicans balk at claims that the Obama administration can decide which companies are winners or losers, and questioned a plan to approve $10 billion more in loans before the stimulus program expires.

“Solar panels have been subsidized by the federal government. States’ governments are also subsidizing or giving taxpayers write-off on their tax return. And yet, these solar panels cannot make it in the competitive world without all these subsidies. And even with them, China is flooding the market with this cheap labor and the solar panels just don’t make sense,” House Energy and Commerce Oversight and Investigations Subommittee Chairman Cliff Stearns R-Fla., told Fox News.

“So I think the administration is on this fervent religion of green jobs and clinging to the idea that solar panel is the answer and it is not the answer,” he said.

Another winner of stimulus who ultimately lost is Mountain Plaza Inc. Despite declaring bankruptcy in 2003, the company received $424,000 from the Tennessee Department of Transportation as part of a grant aimed at installing “truck stop electrification” systems that allow idling truckers to plug-in during extended stops and turn off their exhaust-belching, environment polluting diesel engines.

Mountain Plaza had filed for bankruptcy protection again in June 2010. TDOT, which received a $2 million stimulus grant from the Environmental Protection Agency for the project, said it didn’t learn about the bankruptcy until October, but it is closely monitoring the project.

Elsewhere, Olsen’s Crop Service and Olsen’s Mills Acquisition Co. also failed despite Olsen’s Mills receiving $10 million to increase employment, add equipment and machinery, refinance existing debts and work capital for operations and acquire land. The payout — part of a $64 million package to nine rural businesses in Wisconsin for economic development loan assistance — was delivered in January 2010, after Olsen’s Mills filed for bankruptcy protection for defaulting on a $60 million bank loan.

WASHINGTON (AP) — The House has passed a bill that would undermine the government’s case accusing Boeing Co. of retaliating against union workers.

The measure approved on a 238-186 vote would limit the National Labor Relations Board’s enforcement power. It would prohibit the agency from ordering any employer to shut down plants or relocate work, even if a company violates labor laws.

House Republicans say the board shouldn’t have power to dictate where a private business can locate. The NLRB alleges that Boeing punished union workers in Washington state for past strikes by opening a new plant in right-to-work South Carolina. Boeing denies the allegations.

Unions say the bill would gut worker protection laws.

But the bill isn’t expected to get a vote in the Democratic-controlled Senate, which it must pass to become law.

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hen in the Course of human events it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another and to assume among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the Laws of Nature and of Nature’s God entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation.

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness. — That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, — That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness. Prudence, indeed, will dictate that Governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes; and accordingly all experience hath shewn that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed. But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security. — Such has been the patient sufferance of these Colonies; and such is now the necessity which constrains them to alter their former Systems of Government. The history of the present King of Great Britain is a history of repeated injuries and usurpations, all having in direct object the establishment of an absolute Tyranny over these States. To prove this, let Facts be submitted to a candid world.

He has refused his Assent to Laws, the most wholesome and necessary for the public good.

He has forbidden his Governors to pass Laws of immediate and pressing importance, unless suspended in their operation till his Assent should be obtained; and when so suspended, he has utterly neglected to attend to them.

He has refused to pass other Laws for the accommodation of large districts of people, unless those people would relinquish the right of Representation in the Legislature, a right inestimable to them and formidable to tyrants only.

He has called together legislative bodies at places unusual, uncomfortable, and distant from the depository of their Public Records, for the sole purpose of fatiguing them into compliance with his measures.

He has dissolved Representative Houses repeatedly, for opposing with manly firmness his invasions on the rights of the people.

He has refused for a long time, after such dissolutions, to cause others to be elected, whereby the Legislative Powers, incapable of Annihilation, have returned to the People at large for their exercise; the State remaining in the mean time exposed to all the dangers of invasion from without, and convulsions within.

He has endeavoured to prevent the population of these States; for that purpose obstructing the Laws for Naturalization of Foreigners; refusing to pass others to encourage their migrations hither, and raising the conditions of new Appropriations of Lands.

He has obstructed the Administration of Justice by refusing his Assent to Laws for establishing Judiciary Powers.

He has made Judges dependent on his Will alone for the tenure of their offices, and the amount and payment of their salaries.

He has erected a multitude of New Offices, and sent hither swarms of Officers to harass our people and eat out their substance.

He has kept among us, in times of peace, Standing Armies without the Consent of our legislatures.

He has affected to render the Military independent of and superior to the Civil Power.

He has combined with others to subject us to a jurisdiction foreign to our constitution, and unacknowledged by our laws; giving his Assent to their Acts of pretended Legislation:

For quartering large bodies of armed troops among us:

For protecting them, by a mock Trial from punishment for any Murders which they should commit on the Inhabitants of these States:

For cutting off our Trade with all parts of the world:

For imposing Taxes on us without our Consent:

For depriving us in many cases, of the benefit of Trial by Jury:

For transporting us beyond Seas to be tried for pretended offences:

For abolishing the free System of English Laws in a neighbouring Province, establishing therein an Arbitrary government, and enlarging its Boundaries so as to render it at once an example and fit instrument for introducing the same absolute rule into these Colonies

He is at this time transporting large Armies of foreign Mercenaries to compleat the works of death, desolation, and tyranny, already begun with circumstances of Cruelty & Perfidy scarcely paralleled in the most barbarous ages, and totally unworthy the Head of a civilized nation.

He has constrained our fellow Citizens taken Captive on the high Seas to bear Arms against their Country, to become the executioners of their friends and Brethren, or to fall themselves by their Hands.

He has excited domestic insurrections amongst us, and has endeavoured to bring on the inhabitants of our frontiers, the merciless Indian Savages whose known rule of warfare, is an undistinguished destruction of all ages, sexes and conditions.

In every stage of these Oppressions We have Petitioned for Redress in the most humble terms: Our repeated Petitions have been answered only by repeated injury. A Prince, whose character is thus marked by every act which may define a Tyrant, is unfit to be the ruler of a free people.

Nor have We been wanting in attentions to our British brethren. We have warned them from time to time of attempts by their legislature to extend an unwarrantable jurisdiction over us. We have reminded them of the circumstances of our emigration and settlement here. We have appealed to their native justice and magnanimity, and we have conjured them by the ties of our common kindred to disavow these usurpations, which would inevitably interrupt our connections and correspondence. They too have been deaf to the voice of justice and of consanguinity. We must, therefore, acquiesce in the necessity, which denounces our Separation, and hold them, as we hold the rest of mankind, Enemies in War, in Peace Friends.

We, therefore, the Representatives of the united States of America, in General Congress, Assembled, appealing to the Supreme Judge of the world for the rectitude of our intentions, do, in the Name, and by Authority of the good People of these Colonies, solemnly publish and declare, That these united Colonies are, and of Right ought to be Free and Independent States, that they are Absolved from all Allegiance to the British Crown, and that all political connection between them and the State of Great Britain, is and ought to be totally dissolved; and that as Free and Independent States, they have full Power to levy War, conclude Peace, contract Alliances, establish Commerce, and to do all other Acts and Things which Independent States may of right do. — And for the support of this Declaration, with a firm reliance on the protection of Divine Providence, we mutually pledge to each other our Lives, our Fortunes, and our sacred Honor.

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I posted this about a month ago but it’s a headline again today. The treaty guarantees that the slaves were tribal citizens, nothing said about the descendents. It’s about time the blacks of today stop riding on the coattails of those that actually were enslaved.

US government wants second-largest Indian tribe to recognize as citizens 2,800 descendants of slaves that were held by Cherokees

updated 9/14/2011 9:00:20 AM ET

OKLAHOMA CITY — The nation’s second-largest Indian tribe said on Tuesday that it would not be dictated to by the U.S. government over its move to banish 2,800 African Americans from its citizenship rolls.

“The Cherokee Nation will not be governed by the BIA,” Joe Crittenden, the tribe’s acting principal chief, said in a statement responding to the U.S. Bureau of Indian Affairs.

Crittenden, who leads the tribe until a new principal chief is elected, went on to complain about unnamed congressmen meddling in the tribe’s self-governance.

The reaction follows a letter the tribe received on Monday from BIA Assistant Secretary Larry Echo Hawk, who warned that the results of the September 24 Cherokee election for principal chief will not be recognized by the U.S. government if the ousted members, known to some as “Cherokee Freedmen,” are not allowed to vote.

The dispute stems from the fact that some wealthy Cherokee owned black slaves who worked on their plantations in the South. By the 1830s, most of the tribe was forced to relocate to present-day Oklahoma, and many took their slaves with them. The so-called Freedmen are descendants of those slaves.

After the Civil War, in which the Cherokee fought for the South, a treaty was signed in 1866 guaranteeing tribal citizenship for the freed slaves.

The U.S. government said that the 1866 treaty between the Cherokee tribe and the U.S. government guaranteed that the slaves were tribal citizens, whether or not they had a Cherokee blood relation.

The African Americans lost their citizenship last month when the Cherokee Supreme Court voted to support the right of tribal members to change the tribe’s constitution on citizenship matters.

The change meant that Cherokee Freedmen who could not prove they have a Cherokee blood relation were no longer citizens, making them ineligible to vote in tribal elections or receive benefits.

Besides pressure from the BIA to accept the 1866 Treaty as the law of the land, the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development is withholding a $33 million disbursement to the tribe over the Freedmen controversy.

Attorneys in a federal lawsuit in Washington are asking a judge to restore voting rights for the ousted Cherokee Freedmen in time for the September 24 tribal election for Principal Chief.

A day ahead of a House vote on a bill stopping the National Labor Relations Board from blocking Boeing’s plan to open a new production facility in South Carolina, a group of Republican senators blasted the NLRB for being a rogue agency.

“This is a frivolous complaint beyond imagination,” Graham said. “This is using the law for political purposes, and I really do resent that the idea that we are not going to fight back. Sen. Reid, help us out here.”

But Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid has given no indication he intends to take up a companion bill in the Senate.

Republicans predict the aircraft maker will ultimately prevail in court after spending millions of dollars on the legal fight, but they do fear the message this case will send to other companies.

“Businesses are smarter than government,” said South Carolina Republican Sen. Jim DeMint. “The next time Boeing has a move, they won’t move to South Carolina or a right-to-work state. They’ll move to china or somewhere else… that’s the signal this administration is sending.”

The NLRB claims Boeing has acted unfairly in opening the new production line in South Carolina instead of in Washington State, where the company’s main operations are located, because Boeing’s South Carolina plant is non-union and South Carolina is a “right to work” state where workers can’t be forced to join unions if a majority of their co-workers opt to do so. Labor leaders say Boeing should have expanded its operation in the more union-friendly Washington and didn’t as part of bid to punish union workers.

The union fighting Boeing’s move, the International Association of Machinists and Aerospace Workers, has sent a letter to House members urging they vote against the measure writing quote: “This bill provides a Congressional pardon in an on-going law enforcement matter.”

Many House Democrats agree.

“It’s the outsourcers’ bill of rights” New Jersey Rep. Rob Andrews told Fox News. “It’s also an interference with ongoing piece of litigation, which is a bad idea.”

Obama administration officials insist the NLRB is an independent agency, whose members are presidential appointees but not directed by the president, and say the White House does not get involved in these enforcement matters.

When asked about the Boeing issue at a June 29 White House news conference, President Obama chose his words carefully.

“Companies need to have the freedom to relocate. They have to follow the law, but that’s part of our system,” Obama said. But with many companies choosing to relocate workers overseas, he added, “if they’re choosing to relocate here in the United States, that’s a good thing.”

But Republicans say the NLRB is an unelected bureaucracy – making job creation when there is 9.1% unemployment – more difficult.

“What was just about South Carolina is now about the nation as a whole. we are dumbfounded, we are disappointed and we’re gonna fight back in South Carolina,” Graham said.

With South Carolina an early presidential primary state, many expect Republican hopefuls to hammer this issue as an example of this administration’s policies hampering job creation.

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No wonder we’re all sick with some illness or another with all the pollutants in the air, with all the chemicals they spray on our food, with all the chemicals they inject in our food, with all the genetically modified foods, with all the vaccines they force on our kids etc.

Is Your Kid Drinking Arsenic?

I’m very proud of Dr. Oz for his report today on potentially dangerous levels of arsenic found in certain brands of apple juice, which may classify some of them as unsuitable for consumption. He’s sounding the alarm for an issue that I believe needs to be brought to attention.

Arsenic, a naturally occurring and inorganic heavy metal, is a very problematic substance for children, especially when it comes to brain health and early development.

It has also been linked with cancer and kidney problems. Too much arsenic, of course, is capable of killing a person.

The FDA has set a limit of 23 parts per billion (ppb) of inorganic and organic arsenic to determine whether foods or beverages for public consumption are a public health risk or merit concern. If the product reaches or exceeds that level, the FDA re-tests a sample to measure the inorganic arsenic.

The government organization claims that Dr. Oz’s calculations are off because he merely measured the total levels of arsenic in juice, rather than the harmful inorganic levels by themselves.
I’m not going to comment about the methodology in calculating the arsenic levels in apple juice until I see more information released.

However, arsenic levels in apple juice – at any level – especially levels that supersede acceptable levels that have been set by FDA itself should not be tolerated.

Dr. Oz’s show addressed a few common themes in America today, globalization and the importation of consumer products from other countries, which often have little or no supervision in regards to ensuring the safety of consumers.

This practice, I believe, is often at the expense of our own children, who are growing and developing and especially affected by harmful exposure to metals and chemicals.

Don’t get me wrong, I don’t want to sound like an alarmist, but just look at the growing levels of learning disabilities, autism spectrum disorders and other diseases that seem so prevalent today as compared to decades ago.

I know that some folks will criticize Dr. Oz for bringing this story to parents’ attention, but I will not. Instead, I am applauding him for his much-needed report, and I hope more people will follow his lead in bring these ignored issues to light.